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Find your happy place on board Norwegian Joy when she cruises from the Mexican Riviera to Panama Canal. Or join her in The Caribbean, Bahamas, and Bermuda from Miami, New York, Orlando, and Jamaica. Enjoy a rush like no other as you race in the middle of the ocean on a thrilling two–level race track. Immerse yourself in all the wonder of a virtual world in the Galaxy Pavilion. Be pampered in luxury in our spacious and beautifully appointed accommodations. Enjoy holiday experiences that will delight your senses and calm your soul on Norwegian Joy.
We set sail on April 3 (my birthday) for a 7-night cruise on the Norwegian Joy. This ship first set sail in 2017 but was refurbished in 2024. Looking at prices and inclusions of different cruises around the start of April, NCL Joy’s pricing for a normal balcony room, including the Free At Sea options, came out cheaper than most other competitors. We upgraded to a Club Balcony Suite. Our agent was able to secure $150 onboard credit, a 12-pack of water, and an additional specialty dining. Departing out of Port Canaveral, the Joy had an unusually early start to embarkation, with check-in times as early as 9:30am. Getting through check-in and security was very smooth and fast. We waited in a lobby for them to start boarding, with photographers taking embarkation pictures while we waited. Getting on the ship and going through muster was nice and easy. There were plenty of staff around to direct you if you didn’t know where to go. We were able to get our fourth specialty dining booked quickly, leaving a whole lot of time to explore the ship. First impressions… the ship was lovely and well-decorated. The layout and hallways seemed to make sense. The ship looked very clean and I was very happy to not get bombarded with cruise upgrade sales. I do remember standing in the atrium and looking up, seeing the horseshoe seating for The Local above us. That’s where we went for lunch so we could avoid the buffet. More on the food later. The staff on any cruise can make the experience amazing or alienate customers. While on the ship, we didn’t seem to encounter any staff having a bad day. From the guy in the gift shop (Chetan) who packaged every item we bought as if he was giving it as a gift to his friends, to the friendly (and often over-worked) bartenders, we had a great time thanks to these awesome folks! The bonus was the Crew Talent Show. There were a few singers in the group who completely surprised me. One such singer is a photographer, who I had seen several times on the ship throughout the week. I did manage to get a good recording of him singing, and made it my mission to find him on our last day to share (airdrop) the video with him so he had something to show his friends and family. Our cabin steward (Indra) was amazing, and made sure all our needs were met promptly. Our cabin was a Club Balcony Suite, which is basically a balcony cabin with a little extra room. We didn’t really notice the extra space in the main cabin area, but it was nice having a sofa we didn’t convert to an additional bed (cruise did not include our college student who now has to pay for their own vacations! Lol). We did have a bottle of sparkling wine in our mini fridge waiting for us. Treats were delivered twice during the voyage. We did take advantage of the free load of laundry. The bedding and the bath products were all very nice. The best part about our cabin was the bathroom. We had a full-size shower (not the little corner shower on other cruise lines). Our shower also had 6 jets we could activate. I don’t think they really did anything but were nice to have. We also had two sinks so we could get ready at the same time. Overall, we paid around $300 more compared to a standard balcony, but I’m happy we took this opportunity. We had a chance to catch a few shows. The main cast of singers and dancers was fantastic! The shows in the theater were well choreographed, and so much fun to watch. Most of the other musical acts on the ship were also a pleasure to watch with the exception of one, who was a little too forceful even when singing ballads. How Deep Is Your Love by the BeeGee’s shouldn’t sound rough around the edges. We didn’t get a chance to see the Beatles show since they seemed to conflict with the other stuff we wanted to do. As a fan of auto racing, I was ecstatic the ship had a go-kart track! We went there shortly after lunch on embarkation day so I could get a few laps in on my birthday. The karts were fun, but I had the misfortune of having a young person in front of me who didn’t drive very fast and wanted to take up the entire width on every turn. I could have punted her and made my drive more exciting, but I didn’t want to get banned on my first day. We didn’t really go to the pools or hot tubs, nor did we take part in mini golf or the water slides. This was a Spring Break cruise, and those areas were packed. Speaking of packed areas, I watched plenty of videos on YouTube detailing the ins and outs of the Norwegian Joy, and there was plenty of people praising the Observation Lounge. We went there the first day at sea. There was a light assortment of snacks there, along with a bar and a Starbucks coffee. There were plenty of places to sit ranging from chairs to sofas to loungers. The views were amazing!! I can see why this lounge is so popular on Alaskan cruises! We didn’t spend too much time there though. The spring breakers took over this area as their social lounge and I was subjected to very shallow (and loud) conversations. After getting cut off while walking to the snacks and the bar, I figured it was just for everyone’s benefit if I left the lounge to them and found other places/bars to visit. Free At Sea is one of the main reasons we chose Norwegian for this cruise. The promise of 3 specialty dining on a 7 night cruise, free internet, drinks, and $50 off each excursion really helped to provide tremendous value for the cruise. On other cruise lines, it would have cost $700ish for a drink package… EACH. Instead, we paid $399 total for gratuities in the drink package, and $120 for gratuity in the specialty dining. Communicating with each other on the ship gets a little tricky, even with the 150 minutes provided from the Free At Sea program. There’s no way to message others onboard through the app, you have to rely on your phone’s messaging apps. In comes the texting wifi package! At $9/day, you can enable this level of wifi. I did notice the regular wifi package was on sale the first three days of the cruise. I thought about taking advantage of it, but was a little too late when I finally decided to go for it. Regularly $29.99/day, the price went as low as $17.99/day on the third day. I thought if I just waited one more day, it may drop even lower. I was wrong! The price went back to normal. All of these internet packages can be enabled one at a time, but requires you to log out (disconnecting you from whichever wifi service you’re connected to), sign back in, and choose which wifi service you want to use (I bought the texting wifi, bought standard wifi for the last day, and had the 150 mins, so 3 options to choose from). You can't browse your social media while on the texting package, but you can text while on the regular wifi. Keep in mind… if you accidentally select the Free At Sea 150 mins, and forget to sign out, it will continue to count down that time whether you’re using data or not. While talking about the NCL App shortcomings, there are a few compared to others cruise lines. Again, you can't message others in your party or on the ship through the app. It shouldn't cost money to text someone in my cabin a simple meetup time. So maybe the solution is to build a schedule for people to follow… but you can't add events to a schedule to build your daily plans. You can only reserve your spot for a couple of shows in the theater, not all of them. You can't see the menu from the MDR on the app. So even if you send someone to check the menu, you have to pay for them to text you what they find (and texting package doesn't include mms!). It just seems like the app is intended to upsell services and not be actually helpful. WARNING: This next part may trigger some people! Food reviews are always fiercely debated, and these are my opinions and mine alone. Overall, I found the food on the ship to be good, not great. I think there are certainly areas where they did better, and other areas that completely fall flat. I would have liked to see more (and better) variety in the complementary dining areas. If it wasn’t for the Free At Sea specialty dining, my overall impression of the food may be worse. The Local – This turned out to be our go-to for breakfast/brunch. This was our food venue on-board, and 95% of the time was exactly what we wanted. I was most excited to see wings on the menu, but that was one of the sore spots for me. The wings were roasted (or boiled… I couldn’t really tell). Far from crispy, a little mushy, the flavor helped take some of the disappointment away. Also, I ordered scrambled eggs with cheese one morning. I got a mound of scrambled eggs and some shredded cheese sprinkled on top. That made me miss Waffle House! Everything else we had there was really good. Service was also really good. I give this venue 7/10, 10/10 for after-midnight grub! Main Dining Room – We went to Taste, Savor, and Manhattan at different times. The food was good, the service was SLOW! Make sure you don’t have something you need to do in the next hour if you go. What annoyed me the most about the MDR experience was the lack of visibility on the menu. On other cruises I’ve taken, I can find the menu for that day in the app. I can plan accordingly, decide if I want to go to the buffet or The Local, or spend the time in the MDR. I can’t with NCL… I have to physically go to the restaurants to view their menu on the digital display. One afternoon, we had an hour for lunch before our next event. We were seated immediately, but my wife had to leave before dessert because it took so long. Everything also seemed to be very salty. We have cut a lot of salt out of our diet, so it was a shock to our taste buds. Others will probably enjoy it more, but we felt differently. 6/10 most for the wait times. Garden Café (buffet) - Kudos to NCL for having a separate Asian area and a separate specifically India area. But the rest of it was basically a section of entrees and sides repeated several times. There was a section for pizzas, a section for desserts, and a section for burgers and hot dogs. Their charcuterie section was a couple of different lunch meats and a few different sliced cheeses. The buffet was good if you’re on the go and need food fast. Also, if you have picky eaters who must have usual staple foods, this is the right place for you. I miss the variety I found in other ships. I do appreciate having utensil wraps at the tables so you don’t have to grab them while you’re getting your food. 6/10 Cagney’s Steakhouse – Look up Medium Rare and by most definitions, it’s a warm red center. Not a hot red/pink center. Not at Cagney’s. The outer part of the filet was overcooked, and the middle was pink. This was not medium rare. But the prime rib was on point. Not sure what happened to the filet, but the sides were exceptional. The miss on the filet, especially for a steakhouse, drops this to a 7/10. Otherwise, it would be 9+/10. Le Bistro – The French have done it again! This was the best specialty dining experience we had. From the service, attention to details, the food quality, presentation, atmosphere… all of it was amazing! We liked it so much, we changed our reservation for our last night from Cagney’s to Le Bistro! 10/10! Teppanyaki – Let me start with this… if you call this “hibachi”, just stop reading now. Go to Google, look up teppanyaki vs hibachi. This place was loud, the chefs did a lot to try and entertain the guests. The problem is when the chef tries a little too hard, and pays more attention to entertainment than the food quality. Bro literally salted the food on the grill over 10 seconds while trying to entertain. He also couldn’t stay in any kind of tune, and was getting drowned out by the other chefs around him. It was loud, it was a complete salt bomb, and at different times, very annoying. They also have New York Strip on the menu and describe it as a striploin. I ordered the Asuka. What I got was filet and shrimp. When asked, they said the striploin is a filet. I think someone is confused somewhere, I’m just not sure it’s me. This was one of the places I wish I would have changed my reservation to a different restaurant. 2/10 American Diner – We went there for lunch on the last day. Burger, fries, nachos, and shakes. The burgers were good. The fries were good. The shakes were good. The nachos were complete trash! The chips were both stale and soggy at the same time. I can’t describe to you how awful it was to put that in my mouth. If they only had nachos, this would be a 0/10. Thankfully, the burger and fries were good, as well as the shake. 5/10 Overall, we were happy with Le Bistro, most of Cagney’s, some of the MDR food, and the experiences at The Local. Plenty of free options, and most of it is good or better. I would love more/better selections of food. I would love it if they used less salt. I would love it if the MDR didn’t take so long. But I didn’t go hungry, and came back weighing more than I did heading out. First port of call… Puerto Plata, DR - We had been to DR on a cruise before, and had bought an excursion to a beach. It was okay, but we felt like we missed out on the culture. After watching some YouTube videos and looking at a map, we figured we would just walk around Puerto Plata ourselves. The streets were safe, lots of military presence to keep us safe. People were generally friendly and not overly pushy. We found a cigar tour, a chocolate factory, and even witnessed a baptism at a Catholic church. We saw Pink Street and Umbrella Street. We saw some classic cars. The cruise port has a ton to do (restaurants, bars, shops, lazy river, pools, and more). But get outside the port, go walk around, interact with the locals. For sure a highlight of our trip! Second port of call… St Thomas, USVI – We apparently docked in the Havensight and thought we were going to dock in Crown Bay. That’s where we had to go for the ferry to Water Island. Getting from Havensight to Crown Bay is tough if you don’t carry cash! $18 each way for us, followed by $20 each round trip for the ferry. From there, we rented a golf cart to go around Water Island, drove up to Heidi’s Honeymoon Grill (they were closed), and then ventured over to Honeymoon Beach. Overall a great experience and I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a VRBO on Water Island for a few days in the future. Third port of call… Tortola, BVI – We decided on an excursion through NCL for this. Best of Tortola and Beach. The tour we received was nothing short of spectacular with all the sights and information. We stopped at all the right places to take some amazing photos. We ended up at Long Bay Beach on Beef Island. This was the bluest clearest water on the entire trip. My only regret was not bringing my snorkel gear on this excursion! Final stop… Great Stirrup Cay – Well, not really. We couldn’t go because the water was way too choppy and the weather sucked. We had a couples cabana booked too! It was disappointing to say the least, but better safe than sorry! While on the ship, we did go to a murder mystery (and our table got the answer right!), and an art auction (we won’t talk about how much was spent). We shopped, we took pictures, we ate, we drank, and did everything possible to fill that void. Final thoughts… Norwegian Joy was fun, offered a lot of great things. There were some places I thought could use some help, but others may think it’s perfectly fine the way it was. There were a ton of teens and kids being a spring break cruise, so patience was required. But that’s not NCL’s fault. The Free At Sea program helped to make this much more enjoyable and affordable. The crew was absolutely amazing. This won’t be my last NCL cruise, I have my eyes set on Aqua/Luna now.
The Haven
Hidden at the top of the ship, The Haven features our most luxurious, well-appointed accommodations as well as 24-hour butler service, concierge service and private sundeck.
Suite
Finished with the finest touches, spacious suites with luxury accommodations.
Club Balcony Suite
Whether it's the two of you or your family, our Club Balcony Suites are accented with the finest touches. And enough room to make memories forever.
Balcony
See the world like never before. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors open to your very own private balcony. Stylish and sophisticated appointments enhance these modern rooms.
Oceanview
Experience comfort all around you. These stylish staterooms feature fine appointments, which are highlighted by nice touches and clear views of the ocean.
Inside
Relax in lively style and smart sophistication. Our modern inside staterooms are highlighted with appointments like a TV, sitting area and more.
COMPLIMENTARY DINING
Every cruise fare includes beautifully crafted menus in our three main dining rooms, a help-yourself buffet and a variety of casual cafés, grills and on-the-go choices. From fresh-baked breads, desserts and pastries to our chefs' original dishes made with the freshest ingredients, your dining can be as fine or fun as you want.
SPECIALITY DINING
Dining aboard Norwegian is about having choices. Enjoy delicious comfort foods as well as more exotic choices from our many speciality dining restaurants for a cover charge or á la carte. Whether it's a cheeseburger you have a desire for, or Coq au Vin, your dinner is ready when you are.
Listen and learn in a lecture held by a guest speaker, Norwegian Cruise Line ships have much to offer to enhance your learning and senses.
When it comes to entertainment on Norwegian Joy, you won't believe your eyes or even your ears. Get mesmerised by the awe-inspiring acrobatics in Elements, relive the iconic 80's movie Footloose on stage, or enjoy sensational wines along with the characters of Wine Lovers the Musical. On Norwegian Joy it's showtime, all the time.
When you want some "me" time, look no further than Mandara Spa®. Relax with a hot-stone massage, one of over 50 speciality treatments offered. At our onboard spas, treatments range from the classic to the luxurious. Let our pampering professionals soothe and rejuvenate you with facials, massages, acupuncture and a full menu of services.
There is plenty onboard to keep children entertained.
